NORTHAMPTON — In a year where justice seems to be the driving force behind national conversations ranging from social justice to Supreme Court justices, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has named the word the top term of 2018.
“Justice” received the distinction based on its number of online lookups and year-to-year increase in usage.
It never topped the list of most-searched words on the Springfield dictionary company’s website this year, said editor at large Peter Sokolowski, but remained “just under the radar for a few months,” usually floating around the 20th to 40th spot. But the word saw a “remarkable” increase in usage over the past year, jumping 74 percent in lookups when compared to 2017.
Nationalism, pansexual, lodestar, epiphany, feckless, laurel, pissant, respect, maverick and excelsior also topped the dictionary’s list for 2018.
The dictionary’s most-searched words are often basic yet abstract terms, such as “integrity,” “democracy,” “love” or “pragmatic,” Sokolowski said, adding that “justice” also fits into that category.
“Curiosity is not ignorance,” Sokolowski said. “Most of the words you look up are not only words you haven’t encountered before.
“Most of us probably have the assumption that dictionaries are only there for unusual words,” Sokolowski added, noting that in reality, “The greater volume goes to usual words that are difficult to define.”
Merriam-Webster defines “justice” as “The maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.”
While “justice” didn’t spike to the top of the list, it did show several “bumps” during the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and when news stories involving the Department of Justice were circulating, Sokolowski said. And when President Donald Trump tweeted that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions should end special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, “obstruction of justice” saw an increase in lookup data.
“Nationalism,” another top word of 2018, was meanwhile more of a “one-story spike,” Sokolowski said, attributed to when Trump called himself a nationalist during an October rally.
Other tops words were also attributed to current events; “pissant,” for example, spiked when Tom Brady ended a radio show appearance early in response to WEEI host Alex Reimer using the term to describe Brady’s daughter during a different show on the station, while “respect” was on the rise after Aretha Franklin’s death, in reference to one of the soul artist’s biggest hits.
On Main Street in Northampton on Monday, “justice” drew a range of reactions.
While many Americans may be searching the term, Rosalie Burrows of Amherst expressed that the United States is far from a shining example of justice.
Reflecting on a radio program she had listened to about Guantanamo Bay earlier in the day, Burrows said, “It was quite clear … the U.S. government keeps people incarcerated indefinitely without any opportunity to make their case, and it’s the complete antithesis of justice.”
“We like to think that we’re better than that, but apparently we’re not,” she continued, adding that she hopes the word’s prevalence in Merriam-Webster’s search data means that “many people have concerns about justice in the U.S. at the moment.”
Alicia Guidotti of Northampton said that justice is “something we should all be concerned about in this country,” referencing Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court amid sexual misconduct allegations.
“A lot of us feel that justice is questionable in many ways,” Guidotti said, adding that “a lot of people never gave it any thought” until it applied to them, using an example of white people not thinking of injustice until it impacts them through factors such as health care.
Richard Hardie of Northampton speculated that perhaps people were searching for the definition of “justice” at an increased rate in 2018 due to the prevalence of injustice.
“If you had peace,” Hardie said, “people wouldn’t be looking it up.”
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.